The Great Outdoors – Magnificent Sights, Experiences and Memories

The great outdoors, a magnificent and extraordinary experience that can be shared with friends and loved ones. Many people nowadays don’t take the time to “stop and smell the flowers.” As a whole, we are so caught up with our own lives that we don’t make the time necessary to enjoy the littlest of things in life, relax and unwind. In today’s society, we are all about work-work-work… Our schedules are so full and crammed with meetings and work-related issues that we forget about some of the truly wonderful things life has to offer, like nature.

Nature is such a beautiful and complex marvel yet the majority of us spend little time exploring it — even in our own backyards. If you were to ask any handful of people in Orange County, California if they have been to any of the surrounding national parks like Yosemite, or Yellowstone you would be surprised (or not) by the amount of people who have never been to places like this. In recent years, I have grown quite fond of camping and being out in the wilderness. It is such a refreshing and revitalizing hobby and best of all, it is basically free.

Camping is such a wonderful hobby to pick-up and although acquiring gear may be an initial investment, depending on the type of camping you prefer, you may hardly have to spend any money at all. Some campers love backpacking, and although I can gladly say I have done this once – it was also a completely terrifying experience for me. Other people prefer to go “glamping” which is more of a “glamourous” experience; blow-up mattresses, A/C, showers, fancy portable sofas and some take it a step further with RV camping.

There are so many sights to see and places to visit that one could never explore all of it in a lifetime. Even if you could, enjoying the scenery and soaking in the view from on top of a mountain is a sight that should never be rushed. Still, making a bucket-list of all the places you want to travel to is such a thrill and brings so much excitement when you can actually check an item off the list. Like previously mentioned, camping can be shared with both friends and loved ones. No matter what age you might be there is always enough of mother nature to share and create new memories.

Have you ever had a chance to fully relax and unwind after a stressful week at work? Do you ever wonder what the Milky Way looks like when it is fully visible? The city lifestyle does not give us much of an opportunity to really lay back and admire the world. Take the night sky for example — the light pollution is so terrible that from most urban areas the only things visible in the sky are helicopters, jets and clouds/smog. Imagine leaning back in your comfortable camping chair, the only light visible comes from a dimly lit campfire and a streak of light quickly shoots across your field of view. You look up and the sky becomes its own magnificent show, filled with billions of stars, and again you see another streak of light shoot across the sky.

In southern California there are so many places you can visit with breath-taking views. The thing I enjoy most about Southern California is how close everything is. In what other places could you drive for only 1-2 hours and be not only on the beach, but also in the mountains, at a lake or even camping in the wilderness? Mother nature will not always be around, and it’s sad to think that we take the beauty of our world for granted. The next time you are feeling adventurous, why not get out and explore, you’ll be truly amazed by just how much beauty there is on this planet.